Final Reflection - End of the Semester!

"Our bodies are apt to be our
autobiographies."
~Frank Gillette Burgess.


End of Semester Portfolio

Alicia Riehle
Life Drawing I
Fall 2009

Throughout Life Drawing class this semester, I have learned a lot about the human body, drawing styles, techniques and form. Although I have struggled at times, I have worked through a lot of the drawing issues that I had before taking this class and I have developed my style in the meantime. In the beginning of the semester, we learned about the spine, ribs and pelvis. These structures were important to help me develop proportion, direction and movement into my drawings. I still find it very helpful if I look for the spine first and work through the ribs and pelvis as well. Next, I started to learn more about the directions that the limbs should be draw and that has helped a lot in making the person I am drawing look full of life, instead of just like a stick!
Moving on to the shoulders, hands and feet, I learned to add details to the body while still looking constantly at the directions that the limbs are going. I enjoyed drawing feet but I found that I had a lot of troubles with them. I even had 6 toes on a foot that I drew at one point! One thing that really helped me when drawing the foot was to draw the structure underneath. To do this, I kept a skeleton close to me in class while I was drawing and I printed out a anatomy drawing of the foot to help me break down the different areas and to get the right curves to the foot.
Lastly, we worked on developing our knowledge of facial structure and the ears. I found this section of the class to be very fun. I really like to work on details within the physical body and so I was very happy that we went over drawing faces. After drawing the skull a little bit, I had a better understanding of the cheeks, eye sockets and nose areas too.
This semester, I have learned a lot from this class. I know that the skills that I have begun to develop in this class will help me a lot in the world of design while I am still in school and when I graduate as well. I look forward to drawing more people and I find that I am very comfortable doing so now. Life drawing has also taught me a lot about the human body in general and I am more connected to me drawings now, more than I have ever been. I can't wait to draw a portrait of someone and have it actually resemble them!

Happy Holidays! I'm leaving for India in 11 days!!

Until next time,
Ali

Alicia Riehle's Life Drawing Portfolio

Hands, Eyes, Noses and Ears...oh my...

This past week we learned a lot about drawing the facial structure. I thought that it was very helpful to learn about these features and I am surprised that they were so much easier to draw when I learned "how" to draw them with a certain technique. I think that my favorite thing to draw now is the nose. It is very challenging but if you get it right it can really help "make" the face.
I find it fun to really look into peoples faces now and really see the structure of all of their features. I had a hard time when drawing hands in class but I still found it to be interesting when you really break the hand (or foot) down into small pieces. It makes it much easier, when drawing the hands or the face to find the planes and work with what we know about what is underneath the skin to our advantage.

Large Scale Shell #1

I had a lot of fun using different 'medias' and styles for my shell drawing this week. I played around with a very dark charcoal, the charcoal pencil and I also used an eraser in my drawing technique this week. I had a good time with it because I could draw very dark, something I LOVE to do!! I know that I shouldn't draw so dark sometimes but I decided that since we are doing 3 large drawings total, I would try a different style for each!
...more later

Trip to the Twin Cities.

Yesterday we went to the Twin Cities for a life drawing field trip. It was a lot of fun to get out of Menomonie for a while and see some very nice exhibits. First, we went to the Bodies exhibit at the Mall of American in the morning. I have seen a similar presentation before at the Science Museum when I was in high school but I still thought that it was very interesting! At first I felt a little bit queasy when we first got into the exhibit for some reason but I felt fine as we went further along into the displays. I found myself drawn to looking at the area where the heart was displayed, the fetal development area and the final body of the exhibit was the one that I ended up sketching on. It was interesting to think about the contrast between what we normally draw and the insides that we saw there at the exhibit.

Next, we headed to the M.I.A. to view some art. I had fun looking around with some other students. We mainly looked at the Louve exhibit and Native American art. We found that we kind of ran out of time because that place is so big! It was a very fun day and I had a nice break from campus.

Everything is Design.

This past week we worked on many things in class. I found it difficult to re-do the muscles on my manikin and the process proved to be hard for everyone. It definitely helps to look online though. I found some pictures online to help me with the making of my manikin muscles. I think that it will help me the most to look at different segments of the body, one at a time and then look at a picture of all of the muscles together s a reference afterward.
This week, we also started to start drawing some much longer poses in class (1-1.5 hours.) I feel like this is a big challenge for me but it will be good to push myself to draw longer.
More later...

Now it's November..

It's amazing how fast time flies! I feel like the semester just started and here it is, November already. These past few months in Life Drawing have already taught me a lot but I am just surprised by how they have flown by. This past week in life drawing, we worked on our manikins, trying to get the proportions of the leg muscles done better. Then, on Thursday, we all shared our midterm portfolios in class. It was nice to see where everyone is at and how they are feeling about the class overall. I think it was nice to have a review at this time because we will be able to look back later and see where we were at, at this point in the semester. I look forward to class today and for the rest of the semester. Hopefully my long pose drawings will improve soon!